Widefield, Nightscape!

[swlloyd3]

Ok so I am just about to book a self catering cottage about 1mile from lake vyrnwy down its own isolated lane and hopefully will get some really nice night sky's to do some observing and DSO imaging

But the lake itself makes a really great picture! So I would like to take a widefield shot with starry night sky, lake and foreground interest: This would be a great building to get in the image, maybe even with night sky reflections? but I doubt it!.... :

Google Image Result for http://corporateresponsibility2010.unitedutilities.com/images/Vyrnwy.jpg

Basically I was going to go about doing maybe 10sec unguided exposures for the night sky and stacking...and take the best foreground from one frame and apply that in processing... Also mess around with some settings, 800ISO and 1600ISO etc....

OR as I will be taking my HEQ5-PRO which could use the GOTO function to track a star in front for no star trails and enable maybe 1minute exposure's and stack them... but I gather then framing becomes an issue?

Anyway I would just appreciate a little advice from experts at this as I'm relatively new to these kind of shots and would like to give it my best go

I have attempted milky way shots before so gained some experience from that but adding in foreground as well is not something I have tried.

Thanks.

Ste.

Does

[Digz]

Option 1 works, although you might end up with wanting a longer exposure than 10s for the foreground.

The issue with option two is as you track the stars the ground is effectively going to move, which will make it harder to composite on after. It has been done before but I dont know how difficult or easy it would be.

[swlloyd3]

That was my generally feeling. I will give it a go and see what can be achieved just worried about field rotation around the edge of the image so will have to make sure I frame an extra bit of picture to compensate then cut it out in processing!

Thanks.

Ste.